She Needed a Distraction
by csijenniferlynn
Summary: This fic begins in the middle of the season one episode Too Tough to Die. An entire conversation of dialogue plus one more quote at the end are borrowed from the episode. No copyright infringement is intended, but I needed to use the conversation to get this story moving. In this story, Sara and Grissom contemplate how Sara's move to Vegas has changed their relationship.
Author's note: Hi all! It's been ages since I've written anything, but I recently rented season one of CSI from the library, and the episode Too Tough to Die inspired this piece. In my head, it was just a drabble, but when I started writing, the words just kept coming. Hopefully, you'll enjoy this. Thanks for reading and please review!

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She needed a distraction. That much was evident. She had fallen asleep at the lab again, trying to find justice in any way she could for the victim whose raped, shot, and left for dead case she was working. After he awakened her by arriving for the start of shift, after listening to her excuse for "having just dozed off for a second," and after cautioning her to keep the case impersonal, he still caught her, hours later, going through missing persons reports, click after click after click, hoping to find out who her Jane Doe was.

Sara's eyes, glazed and heavy-lidded due to lack of sleep, were still somehow filled with her characteristic glare of determination as she stared at that screen, relentlessly clicking "enter" over and over again. Grissom wanted to rescue her from herself.

She was still getting over the death of Kaye Shelton, the most recent victim she'd let into her personal life. An intense fire kindled by grief, rage, and a passion for justice was burning her from the inside out. She couldn't burn out now. He was the one who had selfishly brought her to Vegas, and he needed her here. He had known that her compassion and bull-headed determination would be assets to his team, but he had also known he could find any number of qualified CSIs to join his team right here in Vegas. His first act as supervisor had been to choose Sara. Every day, he was elated that he had made that choice, and every day, he cursed himself for making that choice.

There were so many things he needed to say to her, but, standing in the doorway, staring at her as she worked, all that came out was, "Hey."

Startled, Sara looked away from the screen. Hopeful that Grissom and Nick had found the suspect with their scent dogs, she queried, "Any luck on 23rd Street?"

"I broke in my new shoes; that's about it. What'd the lab say?" Grissom hadn't forgotten his mission to steer Sara away from the case for a minute, but he truly did need to know the lab results about the gang member's cap.

"The DNA from the ball cap is a match to the semen we found on our Jane Doe, but CODIS hasn't kicked out a name." Sara sighed in frustration and turned her gaze back to the monitor, and clicked enter yet again, hoping Grissom would just leave her in peace.

No such luck. "So, you're just looking at missing persons reports?" His voice was gentle and calm, but Sara plainly heard the accusation in it.

"We're not having any luck finding the shooter from his DNA or the belt loop, so I thought I would at least try and identify the poor woman before she dies."

Grissom left his post against the doorframe and moved closer to Sara. He wanted to reach out and massage her shoulders, but he contented himself with just standing there. He still couldn't quite figure out how to move from being long-distance friends to colleagues, especially with him being the boss. He'd never worked a case with her in San Francisco, obviously, but from their conversations, he just hadn't suspected this level of involvement with the victims of her cases. He must have just missed it. He had thought he was an observant individual. His thoughts digressed… he needed to get back to Sara in the present moment.

"Sara, do you have any diversions?"

Sara spun around to face him, irritation evident in her features. "Do I what?"

Grissom plowed on with what he had to say, knowing that he was only going to further anger her. "You max out on overtime every month, you go home and listen to your police scanner, you read forensic textbooks…"

"Yeah?" The challenge was clear; did he want to fight about this or let it rest, knowing that she wasn't going to agree with him? He had to fight on. He leaned in closer. He was so close, he was touching her, leaning against her left shoulder, her soft hair brushing against his chest and shoulder.

He sighed, "Look… Every day we meet people on the worst day of their lives. It's a lot to deal with. Anyone who's had any time on this job knows that you have to have a diversion in order to cope with what we see. What do you do for fun?"

"I chase rabbits" was Sara's cold reply, referencing the words of wisdom he had dared to impart to her as she watched her Jane Doe lay on her hospital bed. She glared back at the monitor and clicked through a few more missing persons and continued speaking. "And I read crime books and I listen to the scanner." Her voice had become quieter, sadder. She wanted to remain defiant and angry, but the truth was, she had no diversions. They both knew it. They both also knew why.

Ignoring the why, Grissom said simply, "You need something outside of law enforcement. Catherine has her kid, you know? I… sometimes ride roller coasters." That sounded so lame. Lame was the right word. He knew that they both knew he didn't really have any diversions either. They both knew why, too. "What do you do?"

"Nothing." Sara's implied, "Now leave me the heck alone" was clearly received by Grissom, who chose to ignore it.

"Okay." He was speaking with an obnoxiously patient, calm voice, as though to an ornery toddler who wasn't dealing well with discipline. "What do you like?"

Sara responded as an ornery toddler might. "I don't like anything."

It was at this point that Grissom decided to, if not give up, at least let her win this one. He couldn't let her have the last words, though. "You gotta find something you like. You can't get too close to the victims."

She didn't want to respond. She couldn't help it. "She's special. To me. I can't help it."

"If you don't find something, they'll all become special and you'll burn out." He slowly stood and made his way back to the door. He paused before walking out of the room. His simple, "Sara?" was enough to convey the message that he expected her to stop going through missing persons reports.

He was her boss, after all, so Sara threw up her hands in frustration and said, "Okay. I'm almost done. I just gotta log off."

With their words, Grissom had done his job telling Sara not to let her cases become so personal and Sara had obeyed his command. In reality, they both knew Sara wasn't going to heed a word he said, and she sure as hell wasn't about to log out of the missing persons database.

Jane Doe turned out to be Pamela Adler; Sara had located her in the missing persons database after failing to follow Grissom's directive. Pamela Adler was not going to die. However, she wasn't going to live, either. She had two bullets firmly lodged in her brain; doctors couldn't perform surgery because it would kill her, so she was to be moved to a medical facility where she'd live out the remainder of her life in a vegetative state. Pamela's husband was thrilled that his wife was going to live; he clearly didn't understand. Sara was beside herself. The teen that had raped, shot, and dumped Pamela was going to walk free in 48 hours.

Tears were flowing fast and hard down Sara's cheeks as she sat across from Grissom in his office. Instead of moving around to her side of his desk and folding her into the hug he wanted to give her, Grissom found himself saying again that she needed to learn to let these things go.

Sara stood up, shocked, angry, and wondering why she bothered shedding her tears and sharing her fears with this "friend" of hers. At the doorway, she paused. She delivered a barb and stalked away; "I wish I was like you, Grissom- I wish I didn't feel anything."

That barb stung. If she only knew how much he felt. Even if he looked at her scathing remark only in the context of their work, hadn't he continued working on Kaye Shelton's case even when it seemed all hope of indicting the husband for murder seemed lost? Hadn't he just been accused by Nick of rushing this case with Pamela for Sara's sake? He never rested until he was sure he'd done everything- . .- he could to bring justice for victims. She knew that. He was NOT unfeeling. She needed to know that. She did know that. Didn't she?

Grissom looked at his watch. Ten minutes before end of shift. Close enough. He grabbed his keys, locked his office door, and wandered slowly through the hall. He casually peered into each room as he passed; aside from an over-enthusiastic wave from Greg, that new quirky DNA tech, he made eye contact with no one. His bad luck continued in the locker room; Sara's locker was neatly closed and she was nowhere in sight. He could call her. Maybe. What would he say? He contemplated this potential conversation as he made his way to the parking garage. Just as he had pulled his phone from his pocket to call Sara, he ran right into her. Literally.

"Sara! Sorry, I, uh…"

"It's okay, Griss." Still fuming, Sara turned to continue on toward her car, but Grissom grabbed her by the arm and impeded her progress. She whipped around, her eyes clearly speaking an irritated, "What do you want?"

Grissom sighed. He said the wrong thing at every turn, so why should this time be any different? "Um, breakfast. On me. Come on, I'll drive."

The three seconds Sara took to pierce his eyes with hers before answering felt like three years. Finally, Sara shrugged and said, in a resigned fashion, "Fine." They walked together in somewhat uncomfortable silence to Grissom's Denali.

Sara was contemplating whether or not this breakfast trip was going to be another lecture session, an attempt to apologize, or perhaps an attempt to restore their relationship to what is was before she came to Vegas. Sure, they had been in a long-distance friendship, and that had had its negatives, such as allowing her to develop pretty strong feelings, quite possibly… okay, definitely… outside the realm of platonic friendship for Gil, perhaps without him being aware. Gil. No one called him that here, except Catherine, and she really didn't want to get on the wrong side of that woman again, so she contented herself with "Grissom." The surname was growing on her, actually. Really, it did sound rather alluring.

With this disarming thought in mind, Sara noticed that they'd made it to a diner. Curious. This was NOT the grave shift's preferred diner. Was Gil afraid to take her to the team's diner alone? Would others talk? Sara half smiled as she realized that they'd talk; she could just hear Catherine balking at their age difference and could feel the jealously radiating off Dave in the morgue. Funny how scientists who are supposedly committed to the truth and NOT making snap judgments without evidence to support them would be so ready to jump to conclusions about two teammates, whether or not they carried any weight of truth.

As Grissom ushered Sara into the diner ahead of him, his thoughts were in complete disarray. What was he doing? He still wasn't sure. He and Sara walked silently to the booth pointed out to them by the hostess. They sat in incredibly uncomfortable silence until their waitress took their order, and then they sat in silence some more. Clearly, Sara wasn't going to start any small talk to distract him from whatever it was he was supposed to be saying. He may as well give it a try.

"Sara?"

"Yeah?"

"Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is an absurd one."

"Come again?"

"It's Voltaire."

"Okay?..." Sara couldn't help but give a half smile at his use of a quote. He always was best able to organize his own thoughts when he borrowed other people's words and wisdom.

Grissom half smiled back. He used to be able to feel Sara's smile when they talked on the phone, and that always made him happy. It made him happier to see her smile in person.

"I suppose that quote could be used in reference to our case." Grissom watched Sara immediately close up, and ploughed on. "Sara, I'm not trying to chastise you again. I think we've both had enough of that." He was encouraged by Sara's exaggerated eye roll. "I mean that you're right about how flawed the system is. The law is so sure of itself that it's absurd in this case. You're absolutely right that no system should ever reward a murderer because the victim is too tough to die."

"Thank you, Gil."

Sara's use of his first name made Grissom's gut clench and it dawned on him; she had needed a friend, not a boss. "That's all you wanted, isn't it? You needed me to understand and leave the rest alone. I should have known. Clearly, you know the law as well as I do. You've been trained time and time again, as we all have, to not let victims become close. I'm sorry. I just wanted to protect you."

Sara nodded an affirmative and they fell into silence again; this was a considerably more comfortable silence, though.

They worked their way through their breakfasts in relative quiet, an occasional, "How're your eggs?" and a "You're seriously going to salt that? Do you know how high the sodium content already is in those sausage patties?" The breakfast-focused banter gave Grissom enough courage to continue on with his original planned conversation.

After wiping the last greasy remnants of his breakfast from his lips with his napkin, he said, "My Voltaire quote also pertains to our relationship, Sara."

Sara's fork stopped midway to her mouth. Her mouth gaped open; whether in anticipation of a bite of eggs or in shock at his comment, Grissom couldn't tell. Sara's eggs fell off the fork and onto her plate, snapping her out of her momentary shock. She asked, "How so?"

"I think it would have been absurd for either of us to step into this new relationship, where we're in the same city and work together and I'm your supervisor, to feel certainty about anything- how we'd work together, how I'd be as your boss, how you'd fit in here and whether or not you'd be happy, how our conversations might change, how our perceptions of each other might change, and more. I feel a lot of uncertainty and it makes me uncomfortable. The only thing I'm certain of is that when I needed someone to investigate Warrick and fill a new void in my team, I immediately thought of you and I don't regret that for a moment."

Sara contemplated Gil for a moment before saying, "I feel uncertainty, too, and I feel uncomfortable, but I do know that I never contemplated saying no when you asked me to come to Vegas. I don't regret that."

"Why don't you call me Gil anymore?"

"Would I fit in?"

"I suppose not."

"Why don't you talk to me as an equal anymore?"

"I don't? Sara, I'm sorry. I didn't realize. What's different?"

Again with the eye rolling. At least she didn't seem angry. "Gil, you used to call me for advice or input on cases. Now, you're doing all the teaching. Don't get me wrong, I think you know far more about forensics than I do, and I learn from you daily, but I miss feeling like my opinions matter."

"They do matter, Sara. I guess I'm still struggling with figuring out how to be your boss and friend and with how to treat you the same as the rest of my team while still holding you in higher regard. It's difficult, and I'm apparently failing."

"It's okay. Like you said, uncertainty keeps us going, or something like that." Sara smiled a genuine happy smile. Grissom was never going to get it. It seemed to her that he regarded her as a good friend and nothing more, but he said he was uncertain. She believed he was uncertain whether or not it would be appropriate to feel for her in ways that moved beyond the current boundaries of their years-long friendship. For now, she'd be content with uncertainty, as long as he finally figured out that she needed him to be her friend more than her boss. Maybe the next time she cried to him, he'd understand that she needed a shoulder to cry on and a friend to tell her everything would be okay.

Grissom smiled back. Voltaire had said that certainty is an absurd position; maybe it was okay for him to be so uncertain about what his relationship with Sara really was and where it might head. For now, he knew she needed him to be her friend more than her boss and he thought he might be able to figure that out.

"Hey Sara?"

"Yeah Gil?"

"Wanna go ride a roller coaster? It's far more fun than chasing rabbits."

An hour later, they stepped off the High Roller on top of the Stratosphere. Sara had never been on a roller coaster before. Grissom had held her hand as she shrieked while the coaster took them over the edge of the building, dangling them over the strip at a terrifying height. Sara had screamed and laughed and Grissom had delighted in her happiness.

Grissom drove Sara back to the lab so she could retrieve her car. The ride was mostly quiet, but definitely happy and companionable. After stepping out of the car, Sara leaned her head back in and said, even though she thought he knew, "You know you're my distraction, right? You get that?"

"Yes. And you're mine."

"At least we're clear on that. See you in a few hours, Gil, or should I say, Grissom. Thanks for the wild ride."


End file.
